Olga Pericet's trilogy inspired by the guitars of luthier Antonio Torres, the considered inventor of the flamenco and Spanish guitar, reaches its midpoint this weekend at the Estación Alta Festival with the second installment of the project, La materia. From the Lioness to the Invincible, in which the choreographer and dancer from Córdoba takes to the mountains with fellow choreographer Daniel Abreu, who provides her with an external perspective unrelated to flamenco. The appointment is this October 20 at the Salt Channel.
And from channel to channel, the project will be seen in January in the Teatros del Canal de Madrid and also in the Mercat de les Flors, whose director, Àngels Margarit, was the instigator of the country's dance centers and the Temporada festival Alta will join in supporting this creation.
"I was interested in Olga Pericet's work from the moment I saw her piece with Juan Carlos Lérida, Pisadas, when I took over the direction of the Mercat -explains Margarit-. Then she proposed her project on Carmen Amaya, The Infinite Body, to us. in which we collaborated, and there was the idea of continuing to support his work. This second installment of the trilogy was convenient for release in October according to its calendar, and organically it was good for it to be at the Estación Alta festival. It will be a surprise what Pericet generates with Daniel Abreu, who has already shown his solo The Son at the Mercat. People can't imagine what this new encounter can bring."
"Trust is appreciated, not just in a project, but in a career," says OlgaPericet before addressing the details of her piece. The first chapter of her trilogy was La Leona, that is, the name given to the first prototype of the Spanish flamenco guitar made by Antonio de Torres. A piece full of nuances and poetic textures that the 2018 National Dance Prize winner premiered last year at the Seville Biennial.
"It seemed like a great idea to make the guitar something physical, that is, not to dance the guitar but to become it, to see what happened in the guts and with the pegs. Because the simple name, La Leona, already appealed to me - explains the dancer and choreographer. "From there I began to investigate and made my universe. But I needed an external vision to see where I placed the ideas in that search for the evolution of the guitar, which was the origin of flamenco. After La Leona came "The Supreme, and The Invincible, and The Empress. And I liked that evolution for my second job."
Here the guitar is seen from within, starting with the material, "praising the beginning of a creation, not just the body or the instrument, but the instinct that a creator has when starting something and giving it shape." And he thought of Daniel Abreu for that point of view that has nothing to do with flamenco, "which for me is dance, more than ever. Today it is a very powerful dance with a tradition behind it that has a lot to say and put into it. The material is flamenco and the most naked dance, more to the bone, something raw, organic, natural...".
For Daniel Abreu (La Matanza de Acentejo, 1976) it has been interesting to see what can be called flamenco, which is not so far from other ways of telling. "There are flamenco styles that we recognize in the work but the body travels through other routes that are not so rhythmic or are not within a musical structure. It is not so limited, but this work respects the languages a lot. It is an elastic, a until where we can throw without breaking the structure of things".
